This is because over time growth assets such as shares and property outperform other asset classes.

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This is similar to something I said in another thread. TAKE NOTE OF THIS PEOPLE!

To back up their claim, these professionals will often trot out statistics showing that not being invested for just a few of the best days dramatically lowers returns.

For example, the US market produced an annualised return of 17.5 per cent in the 1980s, so an investment of $10,000 that stayed fully invested would grow to $50,162. But an investor who had missed the best 40 trading days would end up with just $14,661.

Yet no one ever talks about how you could beat the market by missing the 40 worst trading days in the decade, even though it is also self-evidently true.

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I'd never heard this before, but it sounded very interesting. As to it's accuracy, of course I can't vouch for that, but I will certainly be looking into it further.

Nicholson argues that investors can do better than "buy and hold" without becoming traders or speculators. "If the market is going down, down, down, you will be better off out of the market," he says.

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Don't necessarily agree with this. If you do your research and know that a companys fundamentals are sound and know that it will almost certainly bounce back over time and know the shares are undervalued, why would you not buy them? If you can tick all the requisite boxes on your investment checklist, why wouldn't you buy?

When the market is going down, in my opinion this is when some of the best buying opportunities occur. Warren Buffett doesn't attempt to time the market. Who here thinks they can invest better than Warren Buffett?

That's only about half the article, so there may be more stuff after that. I just wanted to make a few comments there.

Mark

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'If you're going through hell, keep going’ - Winston Churchill

'Success is not about brilliance. Success is about perseverance. Hanging in there is of far more importance than any other single factor.' - Kristine

This is a general comment only and does not constitute advice. Before making legal or financial decisions you should seek advice from a professional adviser, who can take into account your specific circumstances and investment goals.

To pick up another point, both Kerr Neilson (head of Platinum Asset Mgmt) and Nick Renton (prolific writer of often interminably boring but eminently sensible investment books) both say Dollar Cost Averaging makes no sense.

This aligns with my thinking. One of the aspects that really appealed to me with the NavTRaDE approach which lies at the heart of the NI funds was the dollar cost trading approach.

After all, if you're shopping for say shoes (just cause you like to collect them like my wife ) and you only want and don't actually need more shoes (like my wife ) then why for goodness sake would you buy one pair every month without fail Wouldn't it make sense instead to just buy 5 pairs when they're on sale?

People do this all the time with their groceries...stocking up when things are on special...but don't do it with their investing. Why is that?

Nigel

This is a general comment only and does not constitute advice. Before making legal or financial decisions you should seek advice from a professional adviser, who can take into account your specific circumstances and investment goals.

To pick up another point, both Kerr Neilson (head of Platinum Asset Mgmt) and Nick Renton (prolific writer of often interminably boring but eminently sensible investment books) both say Dollar Cost Averaging makes no sense.

This aligns with my thinking. One of the aspects that really appealed to me with the NavTRaDE approach which lies at the heart of the NI funds was the dollar cost trading approach.

After all, if you're shopping for say shoes (just cause you like to collect them like my wife ) and you only want and don't actually need more shoes (like my wife ) then why for goodness sake would you buy one pair every month without fail Wouldn't it make sense instead to just buy 5 pairs when they're on sale?

People do this all the time with their groceries...stocking up when things are on special...but don't do it with their investing. Why is that?

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Couldn't agree with you more there Nigel. Dollar cost averaging is a farce. Buying good businesses cheap - which is what you do when you buy good shares cheaply makes a great deal of sense. Why would you not want to do that? Most of the people out there in the market panic when business values drop, taking the good with the bad. This creates opportunity. Telling people not to buy when the market is falling is like telling people not to buy IP's when the pirces are falling. Does that makes sense to anyone else? Cause it doesn't to me.

Mark

'If you're going through hell, keep going’ - Winston Churchill

'Success is not about brilliance. Success is about perseverance. Hanging in there is of far more importance than any other single factor.' - Kristine

This is a general comment only and does not constitute advice. Before making legal or financial decisions you should seek advice from a professional adviser, who can take into account your specific circumstances and investment goals.

Yep. Dollar cost averaging it's a losers strategy.
Buying shares when market is falling is a bit risky. You just do not know if shares will bounce back and when.
There is one problem with fundamental analysis.
Market often does not respond to new information.
If fundamental analysis were correct then every piece of information would cause the market to move in a given direction.
A piece of information may cause the market to go up, down or simply do nothing and this depends on the mood of the market players."Who here thinks they can invest better than Warren Buffett?".
Do not forget that W. Buffett when he started he was kind of speculator and he made big money trading stocks based on the inside information - would you belive it ?.
From quite some time he does not need to do anything but to buy companies.
I wonder what could happen if he could start trading/investing today ?.